Surprise gravel, mid corner: what now?

[Milts]

So, I was riding back from a friend's thisevening at about 6 pm. Not dark, but not light, and I was cruising around from Seatoun towards town via Shelley Bay etc. Suddenly, halfway through a corner, I hit fairly deep gravel in the middle of the lane (there was none in the right wheel track where I had been riding previously). No warning, although I could perhaps have seen it if I'd been looking closely.

Front end goes wonky, slides a bit, wobbles and then straightens up. Rear slips out and then regrips. My feet fly off the pegs, I'm bounced out of the seat a bit and my arms immediately go rigid. I'm pretty sure this is exactly the wrong thing to do. But what should I be doing? How can I ensure that when something like this happens, I don't instantly react wrongly? If I had been going 20ks an hour faster (which would have been dumb, but probably not unheard of) I could have had real issues with staying in my lane or even staying upright.

What exactly should you do when you hit gravel mid corner, either in low speed zones or on the motorway? And how do you practice this and ingrain the muscle memory without risking binning a bike covered in expensive plastic?

[Hurrie]

i had the same problem but probably not as bad, was going around some hills and mid corner i hit some gravel pretty close to the whit line so the front wheel slipped but than gripped and my rear did the same but by this stage i was in the wrong lane with a cliff right next to me, so luckily there were no cars coming my way

[Brownbikerbabe]

Same thing happened to me a few years ago, rounding a windy road....except I flew through the windshield of my bike and split it in half and then hit the pavement with my face (half helmet)...out like a light. I hate gravel! Leathers saved my skin on the rest of me!

[doc]

What exactly should you do when you hit gravel mid corner

Clenching helps :crazy:

[Sentox]

If it's a true surprise there's not a lot you can do (except re-evaluate your riding if you survive). Grip the bike with your knees/heels, relax arms (the only way you'll manage this is if it's habit from riding this way all the time - and it doesn't hurt to scream "relax" inside your helmet) and stay steady on the throttle.

If you do see it, but it's close, hang off the bike to reduce your lean angle, get whatever braking you can done before you hit it (you can still brake some when leaned over), then try and ride through with a little throttle.

[firefighter]

Whatever you did was ok. You did'nt fall off or leave your lane. Good work bro.

I'm sure Valentino and some California superbike school instructors will be along soon to wank on about some shit that you did wrong. You stayed up, you must have done something right.

[davereid]

They ALWAYS puts the surprise gravel on a corner. Now you know where it will be, it won't be a surprise, so they will put it somewhere else in future.

Seriously.. this is one of the nasty winter things you can expect, randomly placed gravel, generally on shady corners where its hard to see. If you have gone into the corner at a reasonable speed, say 5/10ths of you maximum ability, and you have good tyres at correct pressure, you will need 8/10ths of your ability to get around, but you will get around.

- Keep your head up, avoid looking at the road surface at any cost, look at the exit point of the corner
- Don't change your original line, it will only ask the road for more traction that you simply don't have
- Don't brake midcorner, but if you spot the gravel while still upright, scrub off any speed you can do safely
- Your head will tell you losing traction and putting it down is the likely outcome... but actually the greatest danger is running wide and hitting something, so keep your line..
- Clench

Its a great idea to ride at 5/10ths... you may get to be an old man with all your bones, and skin perfect.


p.s. Not Rossi thanks firefighter ! Just tryn to help

[Sentox]

Keep your head up, avoid looking at the road surface at any cost, look at the exit point of the corner

Can't believe I forgot this point. Don't start looking down if you end up in trouble. Keep focusing on where you need to get to.

[firefighter]

p.s. Not Rossi thanks firefighter ! Just tryn to help

Hahahaha, come on now, I was born to take the piss! :innocent: :shifty:

[Mom]

Report it to your council. This is exactly the kind of shit that gets my blood boiling, if you had come off and been injured, it would have been put down as another motorcycle statistic by ACC not a piss poor road maintenace one.

[BuzzardNZ]

I know that area well, been riding round that peninsula for 20 plus years and seen many bikes hit the deck due to gravel.

Sounds like you were pretty lucky there.

[Milts]

Some really helpful responses here. Although it sounds like when you hit it completely by surprise, there's not a whole lot you can do, unless you're going slow enough to recover.

I might ride past sometime today or tomorrow and pinpoint the exact spot so that I can let the council know, assuming it's still there.

[aprilia_RS250]

Do what mountain bikers do when they hit slippery corners. Get the bike perpendicular to the ground (i.e. not leaning) so you have as much contact with the ground as possible, you must lean out to counteract the weight shift. You'll see motocross guys sticking their legs out sometimes as well. This helps to kick the bike back up if you feel a slight slip, (not advised at +50kmh though), just stomp on the ground quickly. You did the right thing by holding on and not getting scared/panic.

Sometimes you know you're screwed through a corner and you will need to lay the bike down and get all personal with the asphalt/gravel. I found out through many years of mountain biking it's best to lock the rear up and let her slip under you rather than jumping off like you're on a diving board.

[davereid]

Sometimes you know you're screwed through a corner and you will need to lay the bike down and get all personal with the asphalt/gravel. I found out through many years of mountain biking it's best to lock the rear up and let her slip under you rather than jumping off like you're on a diving board.

Some advocate this idea, but for me, once you "lay it down" you have already had an accident - things can only get worse !
I've made a lifetime goal of NOT EVER laying it down, voluntarily or not !

It certainly feels better to get the bike off the lean, but I think its an illusion.

You still need exactly the same amount of force to get around the corner, and a correctly inflated road tyre is actually on the softest and most grippy part of the tyre when you are banked over. Plus the compression of the suspension helps to hold the tyre on the ground if there are bumps mid-line.

Firefighter or Rossi may be able to help more here !

[Sentox]

It certainly feels better to get the bike off the lean, but I think its an illusion.

You still need exactly the same amount of force to get around the corner, and a correctly inflated road tyre is actually on the softest and most grippy part of the tyre when you are banked over. Plus the compression of the suspension helps to hold the tyre on the ground if there are bumps mid-line.

Hmmm... actually, you're right on this. Lateral force on the tires is a solely a function of speed and radius, so hanging off wouldn't actually benefit, contrary to my earlier assertion. Leaning less as a consequence of slowing down obviously would help, though.

Your suspension should still deal with surface imperfections better if upright though.

[Viking01]

Hi, I share your concern on this one. Was riding around Shelley Bay as well late Sunday afternoon, and hit loose shingle on approaches to and in several corners. Seems like contractors performing roadworks are sometimes reluctant to get roads surfaces broomed once work has been completed. Comments from Davereid earlier are good advice (re head-up and look at exit; avoid breaking or quick throttle-off; clench tank with knees; try and avoid stiff arms). Easier said than done. Cheers.

[schrodingers cat]

I usually just shit myself. I assume it has some amazing adhesive qualities as thus far its been a winning formula.

[beyond]

With gravel on sealed corners you normally find it's rare for the gravel to cover the entire lane unless it's just been spread over the road. Often you will get clear lines through it where cars have scrubbed it away.

Once spotted, scrub your speed as hard as you can before hitting it. If you haven't been scanning the road and don't see it till you're in it, look for the areas of least gravel to maximise grip.

Unless you are riding at 7/10ths or more you have emergency lean available and should do the following which can be assessed by the brain all at once and quickly enough to make the moves:
Instantly recognise the left or right scrubbed areas of the lane depending on left or right corner, stand the bike up while leaning off and aim for the clearest patch and then turn the bike in again to catch the clearest line.

9 times out of 10 this will save you. In the one time out of ten when the road is totally covered you're going to have to do whatever it takes to stay on board and if it's thick gravel...... it's all about luck.

[98tls]

Had an off on the TL a few years back re gravel,going hard through some uphill twisty bits on a back road i know well,rounded the corner to find the shit everywhere and no way out the end result being i managed to stop with the bike 1/2 over a bank and me carrying on stupidly hanging onto the bars until i thought my bloody arms were going to snap,let go and sailed until coming to a halt flat on my back staring at the sky.Once the dust had settled i gave thanks to the man upstairs for not having me land on the concrete fencepost a foot or to from my landing spot as i am pretty sure if i had landed on it i wouldnt be walking again.Moral of that story is expect the unexpected eh.

[slofox]

Had a similar experience at Easter (see "Two Wheel Drift" if you can be bothered...)

This was a newly resealed piece of road about fifty metres long and covered the entire road. No signs anywhere around to warn. It was on an uphill left-hander - the kind of corner I love to blast through...no clear tyre tracks either. The whole bike moved to the right across the stones but stayed quite stable and didn't really scare me too much. To be honest it was over before I had time to get scared. I didn't really have time to "do" anything. As much luck as anything else I think.

Would like to have seen it signposted though.

[R-Soul]

Hmmm... actually, you're right on this. Lateral force on the tires is a solely a function of speed and radius, so hanging off wouldn't actually benefit, contrary to my earlier assertion. Leaning less as a consequence of slowing down obviously would help, though.

Your suspension should still deal with surface imperfections better if upright though.
The benefit gained from having your suspension working better by being upright will overcime any benefits you might get from having your tyres on a softer compound on the edge of the tyre. by leaning off, you are keeping teh bike more upright- and getting beter traction. So leaning off will help.

An important part of riding is having one eye on the vanishing point, and one eye on any potential road surface problems. Scary but true.

If you see it in time, prolly the best thing you can do is try and scrub off as much speed as you can before you hit it, and try and go through it upright and then turn quickly afterwards to avoid changing lanes. You can't slip out if you aren't leaning. Obviously you dont want to be moving into the oncoming lane since this could mean instant death. But this is why you are riding at legal speeds, that CAN be scrubbed off easily when unforeseeen circumstances occur....

if you dont see it at all, yeah - like sentox said - keep arms relaxed. The bike's suspension is designed to go stably through a corner itslef with little or no rider input. By going rigid, you are actually hindering the suspension. Also keep a samll amout of throttle and hope like hell the back end bites again. By going off throttle, weight will transfer to an already overleaded traction on the front wheel.

[R-Soul]

Or you could adopt MX style position, stick inside leg out, lean outwards, lie bike down in corner as much as possible to break back traction and give it a big handful of throttle, so that the back wheel acts as lateral traction in the corner, instead of the friction of the tires.

Good luck on that though, unless you are practised in the technique.... :shit:

[bogan]

Or you could adopt MX style position, stick inside leg out, lean outwards, lie bike down in corner as much as possible to break back traction and give it a big handful of throttle, so that the back wheel acts as lateral traction in the corner, instead of the friction of the tires.

you really need to get out on a MX bike, cos thats not how it works at all :no:

[one fast tl1ooo]

Put ya head between you'r legs and kiss you'r ass good :bye:

[george formby]

Poor light conditions & a bad road surface really stack the odds against you. Sounds like your reaction was good. The only thing you can do to react well instinctively, IMHO is to spend some time on a dirt bike which gets you used to sliding whilst counter balancing & steering where you want to go. Ultimately no grip is no grip.

[R-Soul]

you really need to get out on a MX bike, cos thats not how it works at all :no:

thats how I have always done it myself...
so how does it work for you? and are you offering? :ride: :blip:

[bogan]

so how does it work?

basically, to go fast on dirt, you have to dig in and/or use ruts to generate high cornering forces, in doing this the tyres slide around a lot. When the bikes slide its simply far easier to stay on it if you have leaned the bike beneath you, and its bloody hard to stick a leg out when leaning off the bike too! Lying the bike down is not to break traction or to provide lateral acceleration (though I'm not 100% sure what you mean there) it's to deal with broken traction when it happens.

Even simplier put, go for a good cane on a MX bike (preferably on track) and it'll all become clear, and you'll have great fun doing it too :D

[R-Soul]

basically, to go fast on dirt, you have to dig in and/or use ruts to generate high cornering forces, in doing this the tyres slide around a lot. When the bikes slide its simply far easier to stay on it if you have leaned the bike beneath you, and its bloody hard to stick a leg out when leaning off the bike too! Lying the bike down is not to break traction or to provide lateral acceleration (though I'm not 100% sure what you mean there) it's to deal with broken traction when it happens.

Even simplier put, go for a good cane on a MX bike (preferably on track) and it'll all become clear, and you'll have great fun doing it too :D

I was not talking about ruts- with ruts you have limitless traction, so you could actually lean in or out if you wanted to.

I accept that you would not intentiallly break traction by leaning the bike over ( I had assumed that you would do this -like for dirt speed way racing)

As for what I was talking about:
The bike has a force outward on it in a corner. This force is normally (on the road) countered by the sideways friction forces of the tyre on the road surface. These friction forces are non existent on the gravel (not talking about ruts). So a different force must replace the sideways friction forces. The force that replaces it, is a component of the forward traction of teh rotating tyre that is acting radially inwardly in the corner. This is why the bike is not aligned tangentially in a corner on dirt, but slightly more inwardly.

Do you understnd what I mean about lateral forces?

[Elysium]

Not sure you can do much if it happens too quick. Just hope the bike holds!

[bogan]

I was not talking about ruts- with ruts you have limitless traction, so you could actually lean in or out if you wanted to.

I accept that you would not intentiallly break traction by leaning the bike over ( I had assumed that you would do this -like for dirt speed way racing)

As for what I was talking about:
The bike has a force outward on it in a corner. This force is normally (on the road) countered by the sideways friction forces of the tyre on the road surface. These friction forces are non existent on the gravel (not talking about ruts). So a different force must replace the sideways friction forces. The force that replaces it, is a component of the forward traction of teh rotating tyre that is acting radially inwardly in the corner. This is why the bike is not aligned tangentially in a corner on dirt, but slightly more inwardly.

Do you understnd what I mean about lateral forces?

I see what you are trying to say, but its wrong, firstly there is friction on gravel dirt etc, its obtained by driving the knoblies down into the soil. Secondly, the rear of the tyre would counteract such effects (front knoblies go down, rear ones go up), and for those effects there must be friction in the first place. Though I suppose on very high lean angles the slip generated would help the knobblies dig into the ground a bit more, but then so does sideways slide under normal conditions.

[skinman]

I think in the situation the OP is talking about you have no time, just hope that you are well enough setup & have the right line to ride through it. ie not loading the front to much, some throttle on. In much the same situation due to loss of grip in corner have had much the same experiance, now make effort to always take corners setup so that if traction reduces mid corner dont have the frantic flaying around to stay on. brake before, power through. If no traction rear will slide a bit but front will not washout. more chance of riding out.

[R-Soul]

I see what you are trying to say, but its wrong, firstly there is friction on gravel dirt etc, its obtained by driving the knoblies down into the soil.

But I understood that the soil itself moves , so you need to chuck as much of it back as possible with the rotating knobblies to get to the more solid ground underneath? (again I defer to your experience here- I have only had a few days experience on an MX bike, and got a feel fo rit from that, and I am just trying to establish the mechanisms at play here)


Secondly, the rear of the tyre would counteract such effects (front knoblies go down, rear ones go up), and for those effects there must be friction in the first place. Though I suppose on very high lean angles the slip generated would help the knobblies dig into the ground a bit more, but then so does sideways slide under normal conditions.

Not sure what effects you mean, or what you mean by "go up/down" ?
Can you explain?

[PirateJafa]

Or you could just slow down while you have reduced visibility to a speed where you can still stop safely within the visible distance ahead.

Although this might be a bit too "simple" and "logical" and "unmanly". And "legal". And "considerate to other roadusers".

[Squiggles]

Dont forget to wave.

[bogan]

But I understood that the soil itself moves , so you need to chuck as much of it back as possible with the rotating knobblies to get to the more solid ground underneath? (again I defer to your experience here- I have only had a few days experience on an MX bike, and got a feel fo rit from that, and I am just trying to establish the mechanisms at play here)


yeh thats correct, but you don't need to lean the bike over to spin the rear and start digging.



Not sure what effects you mean, or what you mean by "go up/down" ?
Can you explain?

tyre providing lateral forces directly, as the front knobblies (ones at front of rear tyre) go down, they also go outwards from center of corner theoretically creating an inwards force, (think thats what you were meaning by lean over to create lateral force), but once knobblies get to rear of tyre they go up, and laterally inwards creating an opposing force.

[bogan]

Or you could just slow down while you have reduced visibility to a speed where you can still stop safely within the visible distance ahead.

Although this might be a bit too "simple" and "logical" and "unmanly". And "legal". And "considerate to other roadusers".

gravel is a bit of a cunt though, you can see the road is clear of bigger obstacles, but can't see gravel till you are a lot closer, it is also amusing to go through at above moderate speeds and feel the tyres moving round a bit, though my bros has too much shiny to be doing such things, also crap suspension.